


Your Angel

by The Girl in Pearls (MadzieGray)



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Claiming, Dean Has A Kid!, F/M, Humor, Mates, Not Beta Read, Rituals, Romance, Spells & Enchantments
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-10-26
Updated: 2013-11-02
Packaged: 2017-12-30 11:56:56
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1018323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadzieGray/pseuds/The%20Girl%20in%20Pearls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rosalie Winchester knew how her life was going to go. She'd become a hunter, and eventually fall in love with another somewhere down the line. She'd marry the lucky duck after convincing her dad not to kill him after revealing the relationship, and the ceremony would take place in Bobby's backyard. Her dad would pretend he wasn't crying when he gave her away, the dinner feast would be a few buckets of extra crispy, and the toasts would be made with whatever rotgut her would-be-grandpa had on hand. Then her life would be about as good as it could get for a hunter, and for a Winchester at that.</p><p>What wasn't supposed to happen was Cas showing up one day with his soul-buying frat buddy in tow and telling her that she was particular type of human called a muse that God had created over a millennium ago when his sons began to lust after the daughters of man. (Guess the Book of Genesis missed that part.) </p><p>And worse yet? Apparently each muse that was or will ever be born possesses a birthmark of an angel's personal Enochian sigil, and Balthazar is claiming that Rosalie bears his.</p><p>Explanation of confusing-canon-changes and new circumstances inside.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Say Hello to Your Angel, Darling

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so, don't ask where this idea came from, because I have no clue. All credit is given to Kripke and the CW where it is due, and the general idea of what a muse is is accredited to Michele Hauf, who has a book series based on an idea kinda like this. I just stole her word; nothing else is similar between my muses and her muses. But still, this was inspired by that, so she gets her props.
> 
> So, explanation of weird circumstances. This is set between "The Third Man" and "Weekend at Bobby's" and Rosalie (named after the Thin Lizzy song, thank you very much!) is Dean's daughter. He knocked up her mom (Kelly Baker), an upper-classmen, when he was fifteen and popping his cherry. Their protection either failed/was forgotten, and the Winchester left town before Kelly knew she was pregnant. Years later (but before Sam goes away to Stanford) when investigating a suspicious death in that same town, the Winchesters run into Kelly again, and meet Rosalie. Kelly gets killed by the monster their investigating, and Rosalie is taken in by Dean. 
> 
> More of her childhood with Dean will be explained, but in the story. I just figured starting the story without explaining Rose's origins would be confusing as hell. If you have any questions you want answered please don't hesitate to ask ;)
> 
> Also, this is my first time writing in this fandom, so it might take me a few tries before all characters act completely like themselves. Ye have been forewarned.

Rosalie was enjoying some of the few scant hours alone that she got as the daughter of Dean Center-of-All-Problems Winchester--that didn’t have to be devoted to training or researching--to curl up with a mug of earl gray tea and her battered but much-loved copy of _Around the World in 80 Days_. It was a cold, damp day in the spit-puddle-sized town her dad and uncle had left her in while they worked a case in the even-smaller-spit-puddle-sized town next door, and it had struck her as the perfect time to bundle up and just _relax_.

That was what she had been doing, too, until two feathered ass-monkeys decided to drop into her motel room with nothing but the whisper of their wings to announce their presence.

“Holy double-dutching Christ, Cas!” Rosalie swore as she nearly jumped three feet in the air, glaring murderously at the angel as she scrambled to her feet. “Don’t _do_ that!”

“Is Dean here?” Castiel asked, voice low as his eyes fervently scanned the room. She continued scowling at him as she tossed her book onto the chair, defensively crossing her arms over her chest as she looked to the second angel in the room.

“No. Next town over. With Sam. Hunting a rugaru, look’s like.” she answered curtly, still pissed at Cas’s intrusion as she stared at Balthazar, the deal-making angel. When they’d last left him, he and the Winchesters and Co. hadn’t parted on amicable terms. “Why’s he here? No, scratch that--why are you _both_ here?” she looked back to Cas. “Don’t you have a war to wage, or something?”

“Hello to you too, darling.” Balthazar greeted with a smirk. He didn’t look much different from their first encounter; he was still possessing a tall, lanky, blonde and was dressed like a playboy. Rosalie sent him a glare. Stupid asshat; where was the holy oil and matches when she needed them?

“Yes.” Cas agreed simply, head still turning as he apparently checked the room for any other Winchesters. “But I need to speak with you.”

“With me?” Rosalie clarified, quirking an eyebrow. “You sure it’s not my dad you’re looking for? You know; the guy you’re in love with?”

“Oh, so it _isn’t_ just me who noticed!” Balthazar cried in delight, “I was beginning to think I was the only one picking up on the _obvious_ UST between the two sods.”

“It _is_ kinda obvious, innit?” Rosalie quipped, “Now what did you want, Cas?”

“To inform you of something that you...are not going to like.” the angel said, and both his tone and expression had alarm bells sounding in Rosalie’s head. Castiel was, by nature, stoic and solemn, and rarely was there ever a change in the pitch of his voice or look on his face. So when he started flashing big blue puppy eyes at her, she got worried.

“Is it about Sam or Dean?” she demanded, her mind immediately going to her family. Grade-A, over-controlling dumbasses they might be, but they were still her dad and uncle.

“No, it’s about you, peaches.” Balthazar said, lazily sauntering around the room.

“What about me?”

“Rose,” said Cas, “Have you ever in your research come across something called a muse?”

Intrigued, Rosalie tilted her head at the dark haired angel as she wracked her brain for a definition for the term. Muse, muse, muse...Blame pop culture, but the only thing she could think of was the band, and Greek/Roman mythos.

“I’m gonna go out on a limb here and say you _don’t_ mean the nine muses from Greek mythology?”

“No, they have nothing to do with this.” Castiel replied, though he seemed uncertain of how to continue. “What I mean is…That is...Ah…”

“What my ever-eloquent brother is trying--very badly--to say, is that, in the world, there are a race of beings called muses.” Balthazar began, sounding utterly bored. “They were created when you humans began popping out loads of squalling babies in the dirt; specifically, baby _girls_.”

“So humans have two sexes, what’s so special about that?” Rosalie scoffed. “Why’d it require the creation of a new species?”

“Well, calling it a ‘new species’ is a tad bit of an exaggeration. See,” the Lothario-angel continued, meandering closer to her. “Muses are human, really. They age, sicken, die. Really, all that sets them apart from regular humans is one silly little ability...and an Enochian-sigil birthmark."

"What's the ability?" she asked, eyeing Balthazar and the slowly decreasing distance between them. You'd think that after having her and her family threaten to fry his wings up extra crispy, he'd keep away from her, lest she have a holy oil fueled flamethrower on hand. Then something clicked inside her brain at the word _Enochian._

Why did she get the feeling, that if angel-scratch was involved, the dickwads themselves were involved? "What was that about Enochian?" she narrowed her eyes, now even more wary of the angels and why they were here. Cas took a step forward, as if sensing that a storm in the form of sixteen year old Rosalie Winchester was about to hit.

"Enochian sigils. Each angel has one as a...signature, of sorts. " he paused. "And every muse who has ever or will ever be born has a birthmark identical in shape to one angel's sigil."

Cogs slowly began churning in Rosalie's head, and her Dean-green eyes (as she liked to call them, anyway) bounced between the two angels.

"Oh-kay…” Rosalie drew the word out, “I’m guessing the sigil has some important meaning, right?”

“The Book of Genesis speaks of the time when the sons of God began to...long...for the daughters of man.” Cas said, giving her his trademarked look of consternation and inner-angst. “It got a few things wrong, however. When God realized the wants of the angels, and with the fear of the creatures that would spawn from unions between them and humans, he created the race of muses, as Balthazar said. The muses, which were born to normal men and women, were physically similar to humans in any number of ways, save for the fact that if they engaged in... _relations_ with an angel, their union would not result in the Nephilim, which God had disallowed from existence.”

Rosalie felt her jaw drop in shock. “So...because angels got _horny_ , God made them human safe-sex buddies? Are you _kidding_ me?” she laughed a little when Cas shook his head negatively, clearly not sensing her sarcasm. “Well alright then.” Remembering the six pack her dad had left for her before ditching her, Rosalie walked past the angels to the dinky little motel fridge, and pulled out a beer. She leant against the counter as she twisted the cap off, and gave the two angels a _what?_ look when they stared. “The birthmarks?” she prompted, when it didn’t seem like either Cas or Balthazar was going to speak.

“Ah, yes, those.” Balthazar said, as if he’d forgotten, something Rosalie highly doubted. They’d only just been talking about it, after all. “Each muse’s birthmark is an exact replica of one angel’s signature sigil. The sigil acts as a sort of...brand, shall we say? A sort of label. Anyway, its importance is that it makes each muse destined for one specific angel, and this angel only.”

“Huh.” Rosalie said, sipping the cheap ass beer Dean had left and wishing it was a Modelo. “Well not that is isn’t interesting, but any particular reason you needed to interrupt my day just to tell me this?” Because yeah, this _was_ an interesting little tidbit that would _definitely_ be written down in her journal (since Dean and Sam refused to keep one, despite having discovered and done a ton of crap most hunters never would, Rosalie kept one for them) but she really didn’t see their purpose in flying all the way over here to tell her. And why bring Balthazar? Last she checked, the lecherous mook wanted to _kill_ the Winchesters; not impart knowledge on them.

Also, hadn’t Cas said she wouldn’t like what he had to say? What was so unlikable about learning that these muse things existed? They weren’t monsters, and she _seriously_ doubted that any of the stuffed-shirt, oh-so-superior dicks gave a damn about their muses.

So why was Cas here telling her this?

She watched as Castiel--the seraph-level angel _Castiel_ \--fidgeted and refused to look anywhere near her, going so far as to turn away from her. Balthazar, however, didn’t seem to share his friend’s discomfort, and blithely spoke.

“Because you’re a muse.” he said, like it was as obvious as the UST between her dad and Cas.

Rosalie went still, beer still poised at her mouth for a drink, and blinked once. She carefully lowered the bottle from her lips, and in a manner only the daughter of Dean Winchester was capable of, said;

“Bullshit.”

With an exasperated sigh, Cas rounded on her with an eyeroll. “No, it’s not.” he stated. “You bear a sigil, and the angel it belongs to has identified you as his muse.”

“I do not!” she cried indignantly, trying her best to ignore the second part of what he’d said; she _really_ didn’t want to think about what it meant. It was too...weird. “And even if I did, how would _you_ know about it?”

“Did you never think the mark on your shoulder was just a _little_ too intricate to simply be a natural irregularity of the skin?” he retorted, quickly approaching her. She sputtered as Cas grasped the drooping neckline of the slightly oversized shirt she wore, and pulled it so that her right shoulder was bare.

There, just near the outer edge of her clavicle and above her thankfully bra-covered boob, an inch-long, dusky-colored mark stood out against her pale skin. It looked a like a capital letter J, only backwards. Two parentheses-shaped lines went down the length of it. The first going across the top and curved upwards, and the second one shorter, near the middle, and curving down so that it almost touched the bottom of the J. Rosalie squeaked and quickly brushed off Cas and righted her shirt, glowering as she protectively placed a hand over the mark.

“What the hell, Cas!?" Rosalie shrieked. Yeah, as a fairly attractive young woman, she'd had guys try and pull crap with her, but this was _Cas_. For him to start tugging at her clothes was way, way out of character.

"My apologies, but if I hadn't brought the mark to your attention you would have kept arguing." Castiel stepped away from her, and likely out of reach of any weapons he might have thought she had.

"Well I’m still arguing, mark or not!" Rosalie snarled. "It's just some stupid birthmark, Cas. It doesn't make me a muse."

"It's not just the mark that makes the muse, darling." Balthazar reminded her, earning him a piece of the glare she'd been giving Cas.

"Why are you here again?" asked Rosalie, hating that she sounded like the pissy teenager she was. "Last I checked you wanted us Winchesters dead."

"Change of heart, princess." Balthazar smirked. "Now it's just the two bumbling lumberjacks I wouldn't mind smiting."

"Well how generous of you." she said flatly. "Still doesn't explain why you're here."

"Hm, no, it really doesn't, does it?" he drawled, glancing at a now apprehensive Cas. “Perhaps this might.” Balthazar looked back to her and with a thoroughly sinful grin, and made a show of spreading his arms wide.

"Say _hello_ to your angel, darling."

Silence, pure and unadulterated, followed his theatrical announcement. As it persevered, and seemed to grow louder with each passing moment, Balthazar lowered his arms and cleared his throat. All Rosalie could do was stand there in shock, gaping like a fish, and watch what was apparently her angel fidget before her.

“Well, _this_ is awkward.” he muttered with a chuckle. He reached up to scratch a likely nonexistent itch from his earlobe. His attempt at levity was met with yet more silence.

What the hell kind of joke was this? Was fate fucking her? Had the Powers That Be tired of just screwing Dean and Sam over and decided it was her turn to be dealt some crap? This wasn’t supposed to be happen! She was supposed to slowly fall in love with some hunter she met on the road with her family, and then try and coax her dad into not killing the guy when she revealed the relationship to him. Then they’d get married in Bobby’s backyard and her daddy would give her away while pretending not to cry and they’d have a bucket of homestyle for the dinner and her honeymoon would be interrupted by some monster or demon that she and her hubby would totally gank and then would go on to have the best post-fight sex ever and she’d live as happy of a life as a hunter could get from then on out.

 _That_ was supposed to be the plan! _Not_ getting together with some sex-addicted douche of an angel because she had a likeness of his Enochian John Hancock branded on her skin!

“So,” the sex-addict himself said loudly, clapping his hands together as he ripped her from her mental panicking, “Good talk, I’ll be in touch, and Cas and I will be leaving now.” he winked saucily as she blinked dumbly at him. “Be seeing you, love.”

The flapping of wings signaled his and Castiel’s departure, and then Rosalie was left alone, mind still malfunctioning in the wake of the bomb the S.O.Bs had just dropped.

“Oh, shit.” she murmured through numb lips, Balthazar’s parting words running through her brain.  “Oh _shit_.”


	2. Daddy's Got a New .45

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all so much for the kudos and comments! I thought no one would even click on this story because of the crappy summary! XD

"So explain this to me one more time. They said _what?"_

Rosalie gave her dad an exasperated look from where she sat crosslegged on a motel bed, pausing in drying her hair with a towel. She had been trying to drive what had happened into her _dear_ father’s thick-as-a-brick skull since he and Sam had ganked that rugaru in record time and come back to pick her up just two hours after the angels had left. They had discussed it on the way to the new motel they were at for the night, and hadn’t _stopped_ discussing it since arriving _over an hour ago._

Seriously, the only break she’d gotten from the inquisition was when she’d taken a shower, and even then Dean had kept shouting questions through the bathroom door, the jerk.

"They said I'm a muse." she repeated tiredly for what felt like the hundredth time. "Which is a stupid type of human created by God when his dickwad sons started boinking farmer's daughters. The man upstairs didn't want to educate the Halo Patrol on safe sex and tell them how to _not_ go around making a bunch of Nephilim, so he created muses instead. Apparently _we_ won't pop out the abominations if we take a ride on a feathered disco stick."

The looks on Sam and Dean’s faces at her use of the rather explicit Gaga lyric was almost enough to make her feel better about the whole f-upped situation of being something not quite human and meant for a douche-wick angel, but it was one of those close but no cigar kinda things.

“And they’re sure about this because of your birthmark?” Sam, who seemed strangely unfazed by the whole thing, clarified. Rosalie turned her head to nod at where he sat on the second bed.

“That, and Bal--” she stopped herself from saying the angel’s name. If there was one person who she didn’t want to think on now, it would be that ass-clown. “They said angels can sense their muses when they find them.”

“And we brought you right to the bastard,” her dad muttered, eyes now burning a hole in the crappily carpeted floor. Rosalie recognized the tone he was using; she’d grown up hearing it. It was his I’m _About to Gank Some Mother_ tone.

Rosalie had been eight when she’d first heard that voice. She’d been staying with Bobby when some local boy had lifted her skirt up, revealing her underwear. Naturally she had punched the kid in the nose, just like her daddy had taught her, but Dean hadn’t felt the kid had been sufficiently punished and tried to run him over with Baby.

Only God knew what he’d do now, with a dick angel instead of some dick kid.

“Daddy?” she began cautiously, “What are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that I’m gonna finally deep fry me some angel wings, and to hell with what Cas says!” he answered, going for the duffel bag on the floor that contained majority of their hunting supplies. He hefted it onto the table, and began rifling through it. Soon enough he was pulling out candles and white chalk and herb bags…things used in a summoning ritual, she realized.

Well that couldn’t be good.

“So, what, Dean, you’re just gonna bring him here, and...and torch the guy with holy fire?!” Sam asked incredulously, clearly coming to the same realization that she had. “Does that _really_ seem like the smartest thing to do?”

“Hell freakin’ yes it does.” Dean answered, still gathering all the ingredients for the spell. He pulled out the oddly sturdy jug of holy oil, and stared at him. Rosalie could practically _see_ the violent acts running through her father’s mind. “Daddy’s got a new .45.” he muttered.

“I don’t think Cas is exactly gonna appreciate you killing his frat buddy.” Sam said, “I mean, he’s the one that took Balthazar to her in the first place. Maybe he--”

“Stop it right there, Sam.” Dean said, a promise of violence on his face if his brother didn’t comply. “Stop it right there.”

“ _Both_ of you stop it.” Rosalie ordered, throwing her damp towel at her father as she got to her feet. It nailed him in the face before he caught it, and she shot Sam a look when he snickered before turning back to Dean. “Look; I’m not jumping for joy over not being one-hundred percent human either, but I’m not baying for blood now am I? And for the record? Pissing off Cas? _Really_ doesn’t sound like a good idea. So cool your jets for now.”

“Cool my jets? I just found out my daughter is some angel’s safe-sex buddy and you want me to _cool my jets_?”  Rosalie almost smiled at the memory of her calling muses that same thing. Before she found out she was one of them, that is.

“Yeah, I do.” sighing when she saw that her dad didn’t seem to be calming down anytime soon, she walked over to him and gently grabbed on of his big, callused hands in her much smaller ones. Yeah, she hated chick-flick moments as much as he did, but desperate times and yadda yadda.

Bringing out the big guns, Rosalie stared up at Dean with purposefully widened eyes and a just-barely-there, hopeful little smile on her lips; an expression that had won her many a battle with either her dad or uncle or granddads in the past.

“Daddy, it’s not like I’m telling you not to kill Balthazar _at all;_ I’m just saying now probably isn’t a good time. Wait until we talk to Cas, at least. Give him a chance to explain. I think we owe him that, don’t you?”

She watched with a well-hidden feeling of victory as the anger slowly seeped out of Dean. His shoulders fell, and his face turned back to flesh and bone again instead of the granite it became when he got upset and clenched his jaw. She heard Sam stand behind her and approach the two of them.

“Dean, she’s right. Let’s just take a day or two to calm and down before we call Cas, and if we don’t like what he has to say…” her uncle trailed off, knowing that she and her dad would fill in the blank.

If they didn’t like what their personal angel had to say, then this year’s Thanksgiving wings would be supplied by not The Colonel, but by a certain hedonistic servant of the Lord.

“Yeah, listen to us, dad. We _are_ the brains of this outfit after all.” she said cheekily, earning a smirk from Dean. He reached out and gently cuffed her chin.

“Oh yeah? So what’s that make me, princess?”

“The eye candy, ‘a course.”

 

****************

 

It was early the next morning when Rosalie woke up in the bed she shared with Dean, with a mouth that tasted like morning-breath and the general feeling of being urested.

Her dad was still out cold, and probably would be for a while yet, given that it was the ungodly hour of six-thirty am, but her uncle was a different story, she saw as she sat up. Already up and at ‘em, Sam was sitting at the motel table with his laptop, looking like a hunter’s version of bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

AKA, pumped and ready to kick some monster-butt. She stared, noticing that while his hair was dry, it had a freshly washed look to it, hinting that he’d had time to work out (like he always did) _and_ shower. All before seven.

What the flip?

“Mornin’ Rosie.” he greeted when he noticed she was awake. “Got breakfast if you want it.”

“Food?” Like her father, Rosalie was a bottomless pit, and always hungry. She yawned behind her hand and staggered to sit opposite Sam, and inspected the three styrofoam boxes on the table. One was open and by Sam’s elbow, and seemed to hold a healthy-looking omelette of some kind. She wrinkled her nose but didn’t comment; at least it wasn’t the rabbit food he was always eating.

A quick peek into the other two containers revealed French toast and sausage along with about six to-go containers of maple syrup, and...a double bacon cheeseburger with all the greasy fixings and thick-cut fries. Rosalie smiled and set the burger aside, and happily began to drown her food in syrup. Maybe Sammy had been gone for a year, but he clearly hadn’t forgotten what his niece and brother were like.

“Thanks,” she said appreciatively around a bite of French-toasty-goodness. “But dude, how long have you been up? It’s not even seven yet, and you’re all…” she waved a hand at him, and earned a chuckle as he kept fiddling with the computer.

“I like to get an early start.” Sam said simply. “Anyway, I think I might have caught a case.”

Rosalie paused in her chewing to raise her eyebrows at her uncle; Jesus, hadn’t they just come _off_ a case? A year ago at least a day or two had been taken between jobs, for the sake of their sanity. Or, when they had _actually_ been doing some hunting, when the apocalypse wasn’t keeping them from it.

But then again, Sam had spent the year away from them hunting with the Campbells, and she and Dean had spent it in a small town in Maryland living a relatively normal life. She’d gotten her GED after proving to Dean she was ahead of any school system he could put her in and started taking community college classes while he worked at a garage. However, there had been no hunting (save for that ghost thing, but that didn’t count darn it!) in that apple pie life, so maybe she just was outta shape and couldn’t keep up with Sam’s pace.

“Yeah? What’s it look like?”

“Not sure, but I’m thinking it might be another rugaru...or zombies.” Rosalie couldn’t help but make a face. Ew; flesh-eating corpses. Gross.

“Why can’t there be a non-icky monster? Who _doesn’t_ eat people?” she muttered with a pout.

“Because then it wouldn’t be a monster, kiddo.”

“True that.”

Comfortable quiet lasted for a few minutes while Sam typed and she ate, but eventually her uncle clearing his throat caught her attention.

“So...you wanna talk about it?” he asked quietly, earning him a glare.

“No.” she growled as she stabbed her spork into a sausage with more force than was necessary; the imagery making her smile darkly. She wasn’t lying; she honestly _did not_ want to talk about Balthazar or muses or her being one anymore. Talking about it wouldn’t change it, and it didn’t seem to be making her feel any better.

“You sure?” her uncle asked skeptically, eyes on the sausage she had just speared. She sighed as she ran a hand through her thick hair, and winced when it snagged on tangles. Normally she had enviously soft, glossy, shampoo-commercial-worthy hair, but she had made the mistake of going to bed with it wet and unbrushed, and was now suffering for it.

“No,” she repeated, but softer this time. She looked up at her uncle, the guy who had braved through Saturday morning cartoons with her, and had read her books before bedtime, and felt her defenses crumble. “I just...I’m...this kinda scares the crap out of me, okay? Not knowing for sure what that jerkwad angel wants, while also worrying that I _do_ know what he wants and I’m fooling myself by pretending otherwise. I mean...I’m not even completely human, Sam. I don’t know _what_ I am anymore!”

Rosalie felt like an idiot when tears stung her eyes at her confession, and practically slapped one off her cheek when it rolled down it. Damn it, she was a _Winchester_.

_Winchesters_ did not cry.

_Winchesters_ didn’t get all weepy and emotional over things; they dealt with them like the good little soldiers they were supposed to be.

Or, so John had tried drilling into her brain since the day Dean accepted custody of her. When she’d been five, and crying for the mom that was gone and never coming back.

Huffing, she sniffled and swatted at another errant tear, trying to will the rest away before they fell. Venting out her frustrations and fears through tears wouldn’t help anyone, especially her. Better to just bottle it up until she had a nervous breakdown, or something, since _that_ seemed to be the true Winchester way to handle things.

Grateful that Sam didn’t seem inclined to acknowledge her temporary lapse of control, she swallowed past the ache in her throat and gave him a watery smile.

“Hey, would you mind if I helped on this one?” she asked, earning a raised eyebrow.

“On the case?”

“Yeah. I’ll stay out of sight while you and Dad do your “special agent” spiel or whatever and do the grunt work.”

“And maybe get to gank a monster or two?” Sam chuckled, mulling it over for a second. “Alright, I’ll talk to Dean about it, but don’t expect him to say yes, kid. You know how he gets about you hunting.”

“Yeah, I know, but that’s why I’m having you butter him up for me.” she said, and looking at her breakfast, speared sausage and all, Rosalie felt her usually healthy appetite dissipate. “I think I’ll finish this later.”

“Whatever you want.” he uncle shrugged, frowning at the computer. “Huh. Okay, now I _know_ that this is a job.”

“One that doesn’t involve a rugaru?” she asked hopefully as she set her breakfast aside. Of all the monsters, she didn’t really think rugarus were the worst, because they were just poor unsuspecting sods who eventually developed a serious craving for long pig after a while, but she _did_ however think they were some of the grossest. Plus, she kinda felt bad for them, and didn’t relish the idea of killing one.

“I don’t think so, no.” he said thoughtfully. “The killings--three in four days--have all been labelled as animal attacks, given that the bodies were clawed open. Problem is, nobody can identify the animal, and all the killings have occurred in town.”

“Clawed open?” The first monster that came to mind was a werewolf, as they always tore out the heart and ate it, but she knew that couldn’t be it. The lunar cycle was wrong.

“Yup.”

“Oh joy.” she sighed, and stretched as she stood to her feet. “I’m gonna go get dressed, since apparently we don’t take days off anymore.” she said pointedly. “I mean, seriously. I know you and Dad iced that rugaru pretty quickly, but c’mon, dude. Taking a day between cases wouldn’t kill ya, ya know.”

“I like to work.” Sam said easily, giving her a little smile that almost had her doing a double take. Call her crazy, but that smile seemed decidedly... _dark_ to her. Not like the usual warm little Uncle Sammy smiles she was used to. Trying to shake off the chill that had come over her, she just nodded--because this was _Sam_ for the love of apple pie--and went to her suitcase underneath the bed her dad was conked out on.

Unzipping it, she pulled out jeans and her favorite shirt; a super-soft, dusky pink cotton tee. It was the kinda shirt a person rubbed against their cheek because it felt so good, or wished they had a blanket made out of the same material so they could wrap themselves up in all that snuggly goodness.

She also snuck a fresh pair of panties and a bra from her bag, trying to not flash them in front of her uncle (there were lines in her screwy family, and brandishing her undergarments at her uncle definitely crossed a few), before heading into the bathroom to change.

Locking the door behind her, Rosalie promptly set her bundle of clothes on the toilet lid, and started taking off her sleep shorts and shirt. Bending to slide her panties down her legs, she caught a glimpse of herself in the bathroom mirror. Or, more importantly, she caught a glimpse of her _birthmark_ in the mirror.

It had always been there. Kids had poked at her for it in school, and then as they got older most had assumed it was a tattoo, because of how precisely detailed it was. Like some artist had spent hours painstakingly drawing the mark, unsatisfied until every line, every curve, was _just right._

Hazy memories of her mom running fingers over it and dragging Rosalie to pediatricians and dermatologists to make sure that the thing was benign flashed in her brain, but like all memories she had of Kelly Baker, they were more flickers and snippets of scenes and sounds than anything else.

She ran one finger down the length of the backwards J, sobered by the fact that she could scarcely recall the feel of her mom’s hands doing just that, but also because she now found herself unable to avoid thinking on certain angels and muses what with the evidence of her non-human-ness standing right before her eyes.

Why had Cas brought Balthazar to her? He had to have known that this would be the last thing that she would want; to be nothing but some snarky angel’s sterile playmate. To learn that she wasn’t all human; that she was something else. So why wouldn’t he tell the douche, old friend or not, to back the heck off?

What did the great, winged, libertine that was Balthazar want, really? He seemed to be as polyamorous (God, she could practically _hear_ Dean calling her a nerd) as they came; hardly the type to give two craps about having a muse or not. So why had he bothered to tell Cas in the first place about this, since apparently he had been the one to sense her muse-ness or whatever. What was he trying to get out of this?

Damn it, why did the big feathery ass-monkeys feel the need to be so confusing?

“Freakin’ angels.” she muttered finally with a shake of her head, and resumed dressing for the day.

Once she was properly clothed, Rosalie set to combing out the snarls from her hair and brushing her teeth, afterwards applying only a quick smear of cherry flavored lip balm that _actually_ tasted like cherries by way of makeup. While she had some lipglosses and eyeliners and mascara tubes in her toiletries bag, they were really only used on certain occasions. Mostly because her dad pitched a fit whenever she walked around “painted up like a whore,” but that was neither here nor there.

Finished in the bathroom, she gathered up her pajamas and went back into the bedroom, going once more to her bag so she could shove the clothes in her arms back inside it. She noted with some amusement that Dean had somehow woken up, and was now sitting up and looking like a big, sleepy, disgruntled cat.

“Morning Dad.” she said with a smile. “You sleep okay?”

“Like crap.” Dean replied, voice roughened from sleep. Rosalie narrowed her eyes as he hauled himself out of the bed, grunting as joints cracked and popped. Usually so long as her dad had a bed of some sort underneath him (and even sometimes when he didn’t) he slept like the (permanently) dead.

Unless he had dreams, of the not so fluffy variety.

“Sucks for you.” she shrugged it off, knowing better than to ask questions or express any bit of concern for his well-being. He’d just tell her to quit going all chick-flick on him. Snagging her shoes from the floor she plopped down onto the bed Dean had just left, and pulled the plain black military style boots onto her feet before zipping them up. They were good for when she hunted, as the half-inch heel wasn’t too high to cause problems, but was also not as uncomfortable as a flat-heeled boot.

Plus, being as she had managed to find a pair that was neither mannish or gothy, they were seriously cute.

Her dad trudged into the bathroom, ignoring her comment, and shut the door behind him. Rosalie looked at her uncle, who was staring at the bathroom door with a slightly bemused look on his face.

“He’s upset about the muse thing still.” she asked, although it was phrased like a statement.

“You know Dean.”

“Think he’ll try and call Cas today?”

“Maybe. Probably.”

Rosalie tucked her hair behind her ear as she stood, and then ran her hair through it again. She knew she needed to talk to Cas, needed to get answers, needed to _deal_ with this muse thing...but that didn’t mean she wanted to do so today.

“Let’s not bring it up until he does,” she suggested, “Tell him about the job and all the gory deets. That should take his mind off it.”

Sam huffed a laugh, shaking his head. “Whatever you say, Rose.”

“It’s _Rosalie.”_ she groaned long-sufferingly. “Like my maternal grandmother. And the Bob Seger song. And that friggin’ bint from _Twilight. Rose_ is the twenty-five year old virgin who bakes cookies for the lord and whose favorite color is pink.” Remembering that he’d called her _Rosie_ earlier and she hadn’t corrected him, she added, “And _Rosie?_ A chubby toddler with dimpled cheeks. So it’s Rosalie, okay, _Sammy?”_

“Whatever you say, Rose.”

Throwing up her arms in vexation, she still couldn’t help but grudgingly smile at her uncle, asshat that he was.

“We leaving after Mr. Sunshine there gets ready?” she asked.

“Yeah, probably. This town the case is in isn’t too far; Brillion, Wisconsin.” Sam said, eyes on the computer. “Could probably roll into town tomorrow night, if we make good time.”

“Good.” Rosalie smiled and went to sit beside him again, reaching for her discarded food box. Maybe it said something unflattering about her mental state, but the prospect of a case--gross as it sounded--renewed her hunger. “That should give me time to scarf this down.”

Knowing that Sam was watching as she did just that, she exaggerated each bite huge and chewed with a gusto, giving him a private little show of savagery. Her uncle snorted before tearing his eyes away.

“You are _so_ Dean’s kid.”

“Was there ever any doubt?”

“No, not really.”


End file.
